Eclipses from Circumplanetary and Circumsecondary Disks and the Stability of Multiple Planet Systems
I will first discuss the probability that long term photometric surveys can detect eclipses against a young star from an occulting disk hosted by a planet or low mass secondary star. I will illustrate with an intriguing eclipsing event, recently discovered in archival data on a young solar type star. The light curve of this eclipse is remarkably detailed, suggesting that eclipses will allow us to resolve features in young extrasolar disks much smaller than possible with direct imaging.
Recent transit surveys imply that multiple planet systems are common. Numerical studies have shown that the timescale to the first planet/planet orbit crossing event in a tightly packed equal mass multiple planet system is a strong power law function of interplanet spacing and planet mass. In the second part of my talk I will explain how three-body resonances and a resonance overlap criterion may account for trends in measured stability timescales. As far as I know this is the only proposed explanation for these trends. The study of this idealized system may inspire better general understanding of the dynamics of multiple planet systems.